today i'd like to talk to you about how to get your horse to go
horses don't understand in the very beginning that you want them to go and i know this after years of
starting young horses under saddle when i get a very green horse it has no idea nobody told
it when the when the rider kicks you in the belly you need to go forward okay in fact if you get on
a young horse and kick it in the belly you're likely to do a um compulsory dismount and be
told to get off go starts in the round yard when i'm starting a young horse just my body pressure
sending him forward so you can you may need to use a whip to ask the horse to go forward
and i use a voice i aid in the beginning which is a click uh which is what i send my horses forward
for i use two different ones i use the kissing aid for canter when i'm training my horses so that the
green horse understands the difference between trot and canter so i click for trot and kiss for
canter so once you have them going from a click you've got to get on their back and ride them now
trust me no horse understands that when you get on and put legs on he needs to go forward so you have
to find a way to explain to him how to go forward and i use there's three things that i usually use
depending on the horse and what works for them some horses i actually have to get somebody to
come and help me and actually walk off in front of the horse because when you're working with the
horse in the round yard you're on the ground with them as soon as you get on their back they've lost
the person that was showing them what to do so i might i've had a few horses that i've actually
had to get someone else to help me to walk off so the horse understood to walk off obviously i use
my voice as well which is a click and then in the very very beginning the first rides when i can get
the horse to go i actually do this with my legs so it's just a bump it's very light i'm very careful
because i don't like compulsory dismounts it hurts so yeah i would do this to get the
horse to associate my moving of my legs to say go forward eventually the aim is to make our aids so
invisible that the bystander doesn't see them and they it looks like the horse is working on his own
as soon as i get on the horse i use my seat though like i like i dont on a green young
green horse i won't use it heavily because i'm likely to get told to get off as well
because they're very their horses are quite sensitive but my hips and pelvis follow my horse
as he walks which helps him to keep going so there's so there's get somebody to help me
to get the horse moving then when i break them in i don't have them on here but i have split
reins so they're actually very long reins and they're split they don't join together and i
can use them to gently encourage my horse to move from behind because obviously in the round yard
i've used a perhaps a lunge whip to get him to move from the back end so the reins will
help me get him moving and the other thing i use in the early days is just a short jumping crop
just tap tap tap on the shoulder usually to make a bit of noise rather than to do anything else
with so that helps get the horse to go so i'm going forward it's actually the horse's
job to go at the speed you set him at until you tell him otherwise and i like to think of it it
was Kyra Kirkland that wrote this in a book and it made it's an awesome analogy it's like
a skateboard you get on a skateboard and you you get it going and then you sit there and you skate
and as it starts to slow down you might just give one more little push to get it up to speed again
and that's what it should be like on your horse with go he should go and perhaps you just need
to remind him i don't know every horse is a little different rebel i have to remind a bit
every half a 20 meter circle or every uh 30 meters on the long side i just remind him to keep going
he needs to stay at the speed and the tempo that i put him until i tell him otherwise so don't just
go kick kick kick kick at your horse because if you think about how you train a horse the release
of the pressure teaches him if you're just kicking him it's just white noise to him it doesn't mean
anything okay it does not mean anything so when um you come to having and you're going
to see this in a minute because rebel really is essentially he'd rather be in the paddock sleeping
when i ask him to go and he doesn't go i move my aids from a very light i always start with
a light aid up the scale and pretty quickly i will go up and then tap him with the whip i don't ever
leave the horse on the correction if you learn nothing else today i'd like you to remember that
you need to leave the horse on a good transition so if i've asked him to move off and he doesn't
go anywhere and i give him a correction then i need to go back and do the same transition again
so that he does the transition from a light aid not a correction i hope that makes sense
so in the beginning if your horse won't go and you correct him and sometimes i've actually had
to give my horse a bit of a smack with the whip behind here to tell him to go forward
you need to if he takes off you need to praise him it's not his fault that he gave more energy
than you actually wanted he went forward okay so you need to praise him that's one thing and
the second thing is you have to be balanced enough in the saddle not to hit him in the mouth because
if you send him forward and then he gets hit in the mouth as he goes he's never going to want to
go forward okay so when i'm correcting a horse that won't go at all i mean rebels really mild
but i have had them that just will not go i will actually shorten my reins have my hands right
up forward and give them a smack to send them forward and be prepared if they take off at a bolt
you can't tell them off and don't stop them you may bend them down i don't mean let the horse
bolt off on you but what i do mean is if he takes off then just don't pull him up and tell him off
i've seen people do that and i'm like he just did what you asked him why would you do that so let's
just see now rebel doesn't like to go so i don't usually use circles in the beginning i'm warming
him up once i've got him going he's alright i'll use long straight lines and i wouldn't ask him to
go now because i'm coming into a corner which is backing him off i'll ask him to go a little bit
on the long side here so that he's got some open space in front of him to go so i'm warning
him here that we're going to go and now i'm going to go bump bump with my legs and trot
he's going to make a liar out of me but anyway no see there he's just slowing down a little feeling
a little lazy he hasn't warmed up so i'm not going to be mean to him so what you want to do
is you don't want to be continuously kicking your horse and i added a little click there
because what you want to do come on okay you can see him not going forward there so
he got a little tap with the whip and now i'll check my legs again yes forward from them
good boy good boy so we need to eventually save our legs for lateral work and bend so you
don't want to be always kicking your horse with them or they're going to have no meaning to him
so remember if he won't go long straight lines he won't stop circles
don't forget check the description for my three basic principles that you need
to help you train your horse it's free
and it will explain these principles a little more in depth
see he likes to stop good boy so the ultimate aim is to get your horse to go
and stop from your seat because that allows us to use our legs for lateral work
and just ask him to step off my leg and also allows us to bend the horse
if we can stop them from the seat it allows us to use our reins for flexion direction depth of neck
length of stride and a whole pile of other things we do with our reins so really basic go and stop
uh from the seat well that's that's where you're aiming to get from the seat so you've got all
these other things that you can do with your reins and legs i hope that helps you understand some of
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